October 22, 2007

50 SCOOBY-DOO BACKGROUND PAINTINGS

How do those meddling kids do it? How do Scooby and the gang keep such an upbeat attitude as they pass through a world of decay and darkness? For the Mystery Inc. team every day amounts to stormy skies and abandoned places. Every destination is a haven for greed and deception where more than half the people they meet are fear mongering criminals. Perhaps Scoob and company cope with their bleak reality by finding comfort in the beauty that surrounds them.

The background art in Scooby Doo Where Are You? (1969-1971) is equally splendid and foreboding. The rich, painterly environment almost compensates for the clunky character animation. Ex-Disney artist, Walt Peregoy set a high standard during his brief, first episode stint as Background Stylist. But the background crew continued to churn out quality, creepy work throughout the following two seasons. Hanna-Barbera may be known for their annoying use of repeated, looping backgrounds but, as you are about to see, in this case the sublime scenery is well worth another look.

A batch of interiors...

As you may recall, the gang's greatest coping mechanism was always food. Here's a look at a few variations of their only real sanctuary, the Malt Shop...

Rozum- that would have been cool. Too bad you couldn't strike up a deal to use some of the original art from the show. I wonder where all of these pieces are right now.

david- I think there's one episode on season one (the carnival one) where it's not a guy in a suit. (It's an AWOL android.)Well, when the "13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo" finally came on they were real ghosts. Vincent Price was one of the regulars. Too bad Scrappy ruined that show.

Beautiful. I remember that I used to watch cartoons rather mindlessly when I was a kid. Once we were taken to a Disney film and my dad pointed out to me that there was a difference in the artwork from different studios. I trace my love of animation back to that day.

I've always appreciated the extra work that has gone into some of the cartoons from the 60's, 70's, and 80's. I've also been very mindful when a studio just phoned the artwork in. Thank you for listing this artwork from Scooby Doo!

I managed (after 12 years of looking) to get my hands on one of the first episode background pieces. From what I've learnt online, most of these background cels didn't survive long after being filmed as the acetate was expensive so they washed the paint off and reused them! The piece I managed to get had been taken home by one of the artists, stuffed into his work drawer for several years before selling it to an online dealer. Fortunately for me the dealer didn't know just how rare the piece was so I quickly bought it. I'd be willing to share a photograph of it if you're interested? :)

Andrew- That's very cool that you got one!I'm sure the internet people would enjoy if you posted a photo or nice scan someplace (maybe imgur.com or something) so we could all fawn over it. If you do that just paste a link to it in another comment. This post continues to get a number of visitors to this day, so it would be appreciated by some.